


Runaways

by ItsYaBoiKeith (PetalsAndPurity)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance is a sweetheart, Lonely Keith (Voltron), Lonely Lance (Voltron), Modern AU, and end up meeting up in a park at night, keith and lance run away, keith is so cute, lance talks about veronica a lot, platonic klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetalsAndPurity/pseuds/ItsYaBoiKeith
Summary: "What are you doing here?" The boy asked, his soft voice barely denting the thick silence of the night."What areyoudoing here?" Keith repeated, not comfortable talking to a stranger, no matter if he was a child looking just as scared and out of place as he felt.Keith's eyes fell back to the backpack. Along with a packet of what looked like some kind of sweet threatening to fall from the bursting zip, a grey tail poked out, little bobbles littering the fabric, telling of how old the toy was. "Oh. You're running away."





	Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> ...I was meant to be doing coursework but my hand slipped. Oops?
> 
> Enjoy!

   Darkness began to cave in around Keith, the chill of the night settling in and beginning to seep into his bones. He let his lungs fill deeply with air, letting it out through his mouth and watching the black silhouette of the city, distant from inside the park, cast a shadow against the dying sun. The sky blossomed with colours, bright pinks and purples slowly blotching into midnight blue and blacks, the colours slowly consuming what little light was left of the day.

   His eyes wearily searched the shadows, knowing that sometimes, at this time of night, gangs or groups of strange, black-clad figures would gather around, exchanging money for small bags of things Keith should still be too young to completely understand, but knew all too well.

   Footsteps crunched on gravel, the darkness became thicker, and Keith wondered if sticking outside in the darkness with dangerous figures truly was a worse fate than what was waiting for him at the house.

   He found himself wearily looking up anyway, his grip on the rusted chains of the swing tightening, worn trainers digging into the gravel, preparing to flee. 

   Much to Keith's surprise, it wasn't the suspicious, tall and intimidating figure that he was expecting. Instead, it was merely a boy, maybe a little older than Keith if his height was anything to go by (though Keith was small for his age), a blue backpack slung over one shoulder, bursting at the seams with what seemed to be...snacks?

   Keith watched him wander aimlessly, cautiously looking around him with wide, fearful eyes. He almost looked lost, though it was clear he knew the area well, from how he looked at everything with recognition, even a slight nostalgia. No, it seemed to be the kind of lost where one didn't feel like they completely belonged where they were, as though they didn't know where to go, where to settle.

   Keith knew that feeling all too well. 

   Keith's foot slipped following a strong gust of wind, scraping against the gravel underfoot. The poor boy in front of him jolted, eyes darting around like a frightened rabbit who caught scent of a fox. 

   His eyes find Keith's.

   They stare for a few moments - Keith unsure of what to do or say now he'd been discovered, still ready to flee, while the other boy was simply shocked because he'd clearly thought he was alone. 

   "What are you doing here?" The boy asked, his soft voice barely denting the thick silence of the night. 

   "What are  _you_ doing here?" Keith repeated, not comfortable talking to a stranger, no matter if he was a child looking just as scared and out of place as he felt.

   Keith's eyes fell back to the backpack. Along with a packet of what looked like some kind of sweet threatening to fall from the bursting zip, a grey tail poked out, little bobbles littering the fabric, telling of how old the toy was. "Oh. You're running away."

   "How did you-"

   "The bag," Keith nodded to the rucksack with a shrug, looking down to his scuffed boots. "Kinda obvious," he mumbled. He heard the crunch of gravel, and the screech of metal. Keith's head darted up to find the boy had taken a seat on the swing next to him. 

   They sat in silence for a while, the boy next to him swinging back and forth, his feet never leaving the ground.

   "Aren't you gonna ask me why I'm running away?" The boy broke the silence.

   Keith frowned. "I didn't think you'd want to talk about it."

   He expected the boy to agree -  _he_  sure as hell wouldn't want to talk about his problems to some random stranger he'd just met. This boy was something else, though.

   As though Keith had asked him to explain, the boy began to ramble.

   "I live in a big family, and I'm in the middle. They forget me a lot. I mean, this morning they even walked out the door and drove halfway to school without me - I was still in the shower! It's so easy for me to disappear and they don't even notice I'm not there...I thought 'I bet they don't notice if I even run away', and so, uh...here I am." 

   Keith blinked. The boy took that as an invite to continue.

   "I just...I got upset after they drove off without me. I was walking to school and I thought, 'I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna run away, and see if they come find me!' It's been two hours, I think...Wait, what's the time?"

   Keith shrugged. Lance checked his phone, Keith noticing that there were a couple of messages on the screen. Neither of them said 'mum' or 'dad'. The boy took no notice of them. "It's 2AM, I've been gone  _three hours_ , and they haven't even text me," he mumbled, his eyes glistening, forcing a smile onto his face. "They'll get here soon, though! They'll come find me!"

   His lip trembled, and before the boy could let his tears fall, Keith found himself talking. "I'm a foster kid. Uh," Keith's voice gave out, maybe from nerves, maybe from the bruises on his shoulder and upper arm beginning to throb. "We don't get on well. I come here a lot to get away for awhile. I guess he doesn't really notice me either."

_Or he notices me too much._

   A hand was thrust into Keith's face, and Keith almost fell off the swing trying to flinch away. It stayed steadily in front of Keith, though, if shaking just a little. "The name's Lance."

   Keith slowly took Lance's hand. "Keith." Lance gripped onto Keith's hand tightly and shook his arm vigorously. Keith's shoulder throbbed, but he grit his teeth and ignored it. 

   "I haven't been to a park for ages!" Lance leant back, his words falling into the night air with milky clouds. "My sister Veronica used to take me here all the time before she moved out. We'd get milkshakes on the way home. You know, the one with all the american sweets? Where you pick a chocolate bar and they blend it with ice cream?"

   Keith shook his head.

   "I'll take you sometime," Lance decided. "It's my favourite place, but I don't really go there anymore. Only for my birthday, sometimes."

   "Doesn't your sister visit?" Keith found himself asking. "Can't she take you anymore?"

   "No." Lance shook his head. "She, uh, moved state. She works as an astronomer now. One day I'm going to work where she does. We're going to explore space together!"

   Keith smiled, despite the hollow feeling in his chest.

   "What about you? What do you want to do?"

   "I want to work with animals," Keith mumbled, thinking back to when he'd first started coming out to the park in the evening (at that point too scared to stay out after dark), and finding a dog. The poor thing was limping and it's fur was mottled with filth. He'd carried the poor thing home, wanting to help him. He'd washed him and given him his blankets, snuck downstairs to steal some lunch meat from the fridge to give to him. Keith had loved being able to care for such a creature, had spent the rest of the night cleaning the house, waiting anxiously in the morning to start cooking breakfast in an attempt to sweet talk his foster father into letting him keep the dog.

   Come morning, Keith had earned himself a black eye, and the dog had been driven to the shelter. Keith was made to come with him, crying into the dogs fur as his foster father tried to force Keith off the 'filfthy mutt' and get the 'thing' out of the car. 

   Keith hoped he'd been adopted before it was too late. He knew the feeling of not being wanted, being abandoned, all too well.

   "-eith?" Keith blinked, saw Lance watching him worriedly. "Are you okay?"

   "Fine."

   "I was just saying that you can come around my house one day! We have lots of animals!" Lance bounced in the seat, the chains squeaking as he rambled on and on about his chickens, his dogs, and the neighbours cat who Lance always finds sleeping on his bed when he comes home from school. He'd named her Blue, because she was a russian blue, or so Veronica had told him when she still lived at home. He'd spoken about how his brother had a small pet lizard called Gonzalez, because apparently he could run really fast, and no one could catch him if he escaped his cage (which he apparently managed to escape a lot). Keith enjoyed hearing about Lance's animals.

   Eventually, they moved on to talking about other things, both ending up avoiding brushing the topic of their families again, simply talking about school and some videogames Lance plays. Keith didn't know what any of them were, and Lance promised to invite Keith round so he could show him that, too. 

   They began to swing on the swings as they spoke. No one else came to the park, which Keith was thankful for, despite Lance muttering every now and then that his parents should be on their way soon, because if they were to turn up, Lance would probably have to head back home, and Keith wasn't ready to lose Lance's company just yet. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who he didn't feel uncomfortable around, who's lips weren't upturned into a smirk, as though they were mocking Keith as their friends chuckled a distance away.

   Every time Keith swung higher, he noticed Lance viciously throw his legs backwards and forwards to try and go higher than him. Before he knew it, they were both flung into a competition on who could swing the highest, Lance complaining that Keith was cheating the whole time. 

   "How can I be cheating?! You're the one at an advantage here - you have longer legs than me!"

   "Exactly, how are  _you_  winning?!"

   They continued to bicker, until Keith started to get so high, he was worried he'd fall. 

   "Hey! Let's jump off!" Lance called.

   "Jump off?!" Keith shouted as they passed each other again. 

   "You haven't jumped off a swing before?! Me and Veronica used to do it all the time! Watch!"

   Keith couldn't hold back his cry in shock as he watched Lance reach the highest point and just slide it off of the seat, soaring through the air and landing on his feet in the grass. Keith still swung, knuckles white and chains digging into his flesh. 

   "I-I can't do that!" Keith spluttered, his shoes scraping against the gravel to slow himself down. 

   "You can!"

   "It's too high! I'll fall-"

   "I'll catch you! Trust me!"

   Keith froze, still swinging at a high speed, forgetting to continue to drag his feet against the ground to slow himself down. 

 _Trust?_  Keith trusted no one. Everyone he trusted always left him, let him down. They held out their arms, reassuring him they'd catch him, only to disappear and leave him to crash to the ground, leaving him  _alone._

   But Lance, standing there with his arms outstretched, blue eyes wide and sparkling with an innocence Keith's failed to retain anymore, a smile across his features that radiated so much warmth. 

   Keith closed his eyes, feeling himself reach the highest point, and let himself slip from the seat.

   The cold night wind battered him, the rush of adrenaline pumped through his veins as he let out a squeal, landing  _thump_  into something, another squeal sounding as he crashed to the floor, onto something soft. Arms held him tightly, breaking his fall. 

   Keith kept his eyes squeezed shut, clutching onto fabric as he heard laughter echo around him, the scent of cinnamon filling his senses. 

   Keith took a deep breath, opening his eyes. The pain of falling wasn't there. He lifted his head, looking right into the squinted, blue eyes, crinkled from the wide smile plastered over his face. 

   Keith blinked, looking behind him to see two swings a distance away, still moving back and forth in the wind. He looked back to Lance, warmth filling his chest as his broke into a weary smile, and he laughed. 

    _He laughed,_  and Lance beamed. 

   When they'd calmed down, tears prickling the corners of their eyes, stomachs hurting, Keith eventually rolled off of Lance, and they lay on the grass, looking up to the stars. Lance babbled on and on about he and Veronica were going to be up there one day, how he was going to meet aliens and form an alliance with them, how he'd get an alien girlfriend or two.

   Keith simply listened to his voice, feeling a calm wash over him that he hadn't felt in a while. His eyes found a particular star, bigger and brighter than the rest, remembering the nights at the park with his father, before he too faded from his life, telling Keith that that particular star was his mother, always watching other Keith, always proud of him. 

   "Keith? Keith?" Lance continued to repeat Keith's name until Keith threw a hand in Lance's face, causing him to sputter and hit Keith back, gently. Keith sat up, ready to retaliate with a smile on his face, before seeing Lance had emptied out his rucksack.

   Laid out on the grass were countless packets of chocolates and sweets, more than Keith had seen in his  _life_ , and a single, plush shark. One eye was missing, it's colours faded. 

   "I mean, I'm probably not going to eat all this, my parents are gonna come get me soon, but..." Lance held out a chocolate bar to Keith. "Are you hungry?" 

   Keith took it, breaking off a couple of squares and beginning to nibble on it. It'd been so long since he'd had chocolate. He savoured the taste, eating slowly, whilst Lance wolfed down the rest of the bar, breaking open another packet immediately after.

   Keith found himself staring at the shark. 

   "Hey, don't judge. I've had him since I was a baby," Lance muttered, instinctively picking him up and holding him close. 

   "A shark?" Keith questioned instead.

   "Yeah, they're my favourite animal." Lance smiled. "They're so cool, like, have you ever watched  _Shark Tale_? So cool. And did you know that sharks don't have bones?"

   Keith blinked. "Uh, no?"

   "They're just so cool. I want to swim with one some day, y'know, where they put you in the cage, and a shark swims around you?" Lance smiled. "Veronica said she'd take me one day, but she thinks I'd be too scared, but  _she's_  the one that's scared of spiders, so it's not me who's the coward!" Lance poked out his tongue. 

   "Anyway," Lance continued to talk before Keith could even think of a way to reply. "What's your favourite animal?"

   "A hippo."

   Lance paused, frowning. "Why a hippo?"

   "They're cute," Keith shrugged, tugging at a blade of grass. "And they're actually one of the most dangerous creatures - they're super unpredictable and can get really aggressive."

   Lance gave Keith a look, and after a while muttered: "hippos are weird."

   "Yeah, and I like them," Keith shrugged.

   "Do you have a toy hippo?"

   "No."

   "Oh." Lance frowned. "I guess there aren't a lot of toy hippos out there, huh."

   Keith didn't say anything. He didn't want to say that he didn't really have  _any_  toys, apart from one plastic sword his father had said that his mother had gotten him, so they could one day play pirates together (his mother's favourite game herself, as a child), but of course, she was never able to.

   Lance continued to babble on to Keith, telling him useless facts when Keith let a certain topic fall flat. Keith hadn't even noticed how much time had passed until they'd ran out of sweets, and the sky began to light up in a deep orange, the sun beginning to rise.

   "O-oh," Lance checked the time on his phone. His screensaver was a close up photo of a chicken, slightly blurry, the angle in such a way it made the creature look furious. Keith allowed himself to laugh a little, not noticing Lance bite his lip and his eyes fill with tears. "They didn't notice..." He mumbled, disappointment dripping from his words. 

   Keith watched a tear trickle down Lance's cheek. Keith found himself wiping it away. 

   "I'm glad they didn't, if they took you away, well...I wouldn't have found a new friend!" Keith smiled.

   Lance managed to smile too. "That's right!" Keith almost fell backwards when Lance hugged him, holding him tightly. "Can I have your number?"

   "I don't have a, um, phone," Keith mumbled, fiddling with his sleeves, preparing for laughter, or some form of mocking comment.

   "That's okay!" Lance began to pack his belongings away in his rucksack, including his rubbish. He put his shark in last, making sure that it was placed carefully inside. "I'll meet you at the same place tonight?"

   Keith smiled. "Okay!"

   "I've got to go, I've got school and I have a physics test today - I need to take it if I'm gonna go work with Veronica! But I'll see you tonight!"

   Keith stood, watching Lance sling his backpack over his shoulder and begin to march away. Keith grabbed his arm. 

   "Lance, wait!"

   Lance turned. 

   "Do you promise you'll come tonight?"

   "Uh, yeah? The amazing Lance McClain  _never_  goes back on a promise! Especially not one made to a friend!" Lance places a fist to his chest and tilts his chin up. Keith can't help but laugh.

   "Thank you, Lance." Keith tightens his grip a little on Lance's arm. Lance just smiles, saluting.

   "See ya later, Keith!" Lance sings, before running out the park.

   Keith leaves the park moments later. Though he was exhausted and dreading the lonely day at school ahead, he finds himself smiling as the morning rays of sun bore down on him, already looking forward to tonight. 

    _A friend,_  Keith thought, smile stretching so far on his face that his cheeks ached.


End file.
